Raytheon Warhead Completes Test Flight, Pentagon Says

By Tony Capaccio -
Jan 28, 2013

Raytheon Co. (RTN)’s latest interceptor
warhead intended to protect the U.S. from intercontinental
ballistic missiles successfully completed an initial flight test
to determine whether a guidance flaw has been fixed, according
to the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer.

The launch wasn’t designed to destroy a dummy target
representing an enemy missile headed to the U.S. Instead, its
goal was to verify that a remedy had been found for a classified
flaw in the warhead’s guidance system discovered after such an
intercept test failed in December 2010.

“The test was a very important step forward as we move
toward a return to intercept,” Frank Kendall, undersecretary of
defense for acquisition, said in an e-mailed statement. He said
the Pentagon “will assess the very large amount of data we
received” and use that to prepare for the next intercept test.

The “kill vehicle” made by Waltham, Massachusetts-based
Raytheon is a 120-pound (54-kilogram) spacecraft about the
length of a broomstick. It looks like a telescope mounted on a
pack of propane cylinders. It is supposed to pick out a target
amid decoys and debris and destroy it by smashing into it high
speed. The warhead is launched off a missile made by Orbital
Sciences Corp. (ORB)

Iran, North Korea

It’s part of a $35 billion system of ground-based
interceptors in Alaska and California that hasn’t successfully
destroyed a target since December 2008. The system managed by
Chicago-based Boeing Co. (BA) is intended to protect the U.S.,
including Hawaii, from a small number of missiles fired from
Iran or North Korea.

“This test is particularly timely in light of recent
threats from North Korean leaders of upcoming long-range rocket
and nuclear weapons tests aimed at the United States,” Senator
James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Senate Armed
Services Committee, said today in an e-mailed statement.

Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who heads the
committee, agreed with Kendall that the initial test was a step
forward.

“Given the problems resulting from years” of producing
the warhead even as it remained in development, “we need to
make sure this system works as we are properly taking the time
and effort to get it right,” Levin said.

Intercepting Target

Confirmation that the guidance system’s flaw has been fixed
would permit the first effort to intercept a test target since
the failure in 2010.

Richard Lehner, spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency,
said in an e-mail that it “may be weeks before we can assess
performance.” Lehner said an intercept test may occur sometime
in April to June.

Raytheon’s standing as the sole source for the warhead may
be in jeopardy. Under a mandate from Congress in the fiscal 2013
defense authorization bill, the Missile Defense Agency will
study whether to open the next version of the weapon to
competition.

The Missile Defense Agency made progress last year as it
redesigned and tested components of the warhead, which costs $30
million apiece, “and established more stringent” requirements
for parts and manufacturing, Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s
director of operational testing, said in his annual report this
month.

‘Important Step’

The test over the weekend was an important diagnostic
assessment, Cristina Chaplain of the Government Accountability
Office, who manages the watchdog agency’s oversight of missile
defense, said in an e-mail.

“If the test was fully successful, then it is an important
step” to returning the ground-based program to development
flight testing, she said, adding that the GAO hadn’t yet seen
the missile defense agency’s analysis of the results.

The next flight test will be crucial in determining whether
the agency lets Raytheon resume production of the new warhead,
which has been on hold since January 2011, Chaplain said.

“Rigorous non-intercept flight tests are important in
proving the effectiveness and operational capability of
ballistic missile defense weapons and their various
components,” Wes Kremer, Raytheon Missile Systems vice
president of air and missile Defense Systems said in a
statement.

The test “allowed us to challenge” the warhead “in a
series of realistic outer-space environments, which gives us a
broad range of data prior to moving toward an intercept
scenario,” Kremer said.